Australia & France.

[Dafe]

Wow. I am a New Zealander, just like those ones at Gallipoli.

I think there would be one surreal difference between you and them. Unless you're just a deadbeat!

There is proof the japanese invasion currency existed and there is proof that the japanese invasion plans intended on an Australasian invasion also.

As outlined here.http://home.st.net.au/~dunn/japsland/invade01.htm

[Hitcher]

Hitcher - You listen to too much government-owned broadcasting.
Where were you when Don Brash was demanding a re-election at the end of this year, due to Helen stepping down in order to pursue the top UN role?

If Miss Clark steps down to pursue the UN role, I'll buy you at least one beer.

And that "Japanese currency" looks decidely bogus. Maybe they were going to use it to pay for Fijian peacekeepers...

[Madness]

There will probably be a lot of beer drunk on the day Helen steps down. Japanese beer too I'd imagine, maybe the odd Chinese brew or two as well.

[onearmedbandit]

I'm not overly worried what your opinion is as it doesn't affect me, just interested in your point of view. If what you say about speaking all 3 languages fluently is true then I would think you know a thing or two about the subject. Can be hard to fully understand someone when all you see and know of them is a few words typed on a computer.

[Motu]

Camp Bun and Sylvia Park were the biggest PX stores in the Southern Hemishpere - the US Pacific campain was practicaly supplied from there.I think the only reason the Japs would of had any interest in NZ would be to cut off the supply line....a basics of war.

[Ixion]

If Miss Clark steps down to pursue the UN role, I'll buy you at least one beer.

And that "Japanese currency" looks decidely bogus. Maybe they were going to use it to pay for Fijian peacekeepers...

No, the currency is real. There were similar rupees (for the invasion of India that never made it), Straits dollars, dollars (for the Phillipines ) etc.

Basically in the first heady days of the war some Jap civil servant decided to be proactive and order currency stock for everywhere in the Pacific. Deployment, was another matter.

As to the Jap invasion plans - please define "invasion". If you mean military attack, that is one thing, but invasion in force is quite another. I have never heard of any serious Imperial proposals to invade Australia, let alone NZ.

Of course , the Jap High Command, like all high commands, no doubt had "plans" drawn up for all sorts of pipe dreams. If Operation Sealion had succeeded, well who knows. If the Japs had managed to make an atom bomb before the Yanks? Who knows. Practical reality, in the circumstances as they actually existed, NZ was never in any danger. And if we had been , the Yanks would not have cared much. Our only use to them was as a supply depot and R&R. They would have cared as little for NZs fate then as they do now.

[Indiana_Jones]

Everyone knows Winston Churchill and the Poms won the war.

What about all those supplies we got from the Yanks ? lol

"Oho, an English boy, huh? You know, we saved your ass in World War II."

"Yeah, well, we saved your arse in World War III!"

-Indy

[sAsLEX]

This NZ Government has long forgotten, and the majority of the people of this country (excluding the returned services of course), too easily forget what others have done for us.

oi I aint returned yet! and a few more hold my views in the current service.

[Timber020]

Even without the contribution of troops could the allies have beaten the Japs and Germans without Sherman tanks, C47's, Mustangs, B17's, Liberty ships, jeeps, Duece and a halfs, Flat bottom landing craft, Kittyhawks, DUKW, tommy guns and breaking the japanese naval code.

Looking at history and trying to figure out what might have happened is a tough one. But I dont think we would have got away without having to deal with nippon on our own soil.

[Indiana_Jones]

We would of been fucked in the Pacific if the U.S. had done nothing.
Europe was won by the Poms and Russians.

-Indy

[Magua]

We would of been fucked in the Pacific if the U.S. had done nothing.
Europe was won by the Poms and Russians.

-Indy

Fucked in the pacific? Maybe. Doesn't mean we should go running to them now (dafe) blindy like the australian lap dogs.

[oldrider]

I think you'll find that the Japanese had no intention of invading either Australia or New Zealand. (what do you base that on?)

Neither territory held any strategic importance for them. They were much more interested in the oil wealth of China and the then French Indo-China, and were more than a little extended on that front. (No argument with that)

A couple of submarine and spotter aircraft sightings do not an invasion make. Japanese attacks on mainland Australia (in Sydney and Darwin) were more nuisance value than anything else -- there was no supporting invasion fleet for either incursion. (My understanding is because the Americans and returning Australian forces plus other allies including NZ forces, stopped them and pushed them back)

Hitcher,
I admit I have not studied anything of the Pacific war history specifically, I only believe what I thought I understood to be happening around me as a child.
I was very young, so I may have got it wrong.
Invasion or not the threat was very real and people did die in Darwin did they not? (I may have just assumed this over the years)
It was a very frightening time but like all people under threat you just live with it. (or die, had it not been for America. IMHO.)
These days people seem to just brush aside the realities of those times as of no real consequence, I find that hard to accept.
I will always remember VE and VJ days, I have never witnessed such celebration and unified happiness since those days. Cheers John

[Ixion]

I believe there were fatalities in the Darwin attacks.

Had some of the naval battles gone more in favour of the Japs, there would certainly have been more fatalities. From naval attacks and bombing, possibly even small scale landings. But that is not the same thing as an invasion.

I for one certainly do not intend to denigrate the sacrifices of the men who fought , and died. Nor to minimise the very real fear of the civilian populations.

But, with hindsight, we can more easily see what people then could not. The initial successes of the Jap forces naturally made people afraid. They seemed , for a while, unstoppable. People then did not know how over extended they were, or what a desparate gamble they were taking. And did not realise that they had nothing left in reserve to bite off any more conquests. Now, we know that.

BTW, it was, as ever, the navies (RN and USN, not forgetting the gallantry of the Royal Netherlands Naval forces) , that stopped them.

To steal a famous line, I do not say the Japs could not have come. Only that they could not have come by sea.

[Hitcher]

Yeah, well, we saved your arse in World War III!

WW III, the global war of the arse. The BDOTGNZA is on board with that.

[Big Dave]

I believe there were fatalities in the Darwin attacks.

At the time of the raid, forty-five ships were in the harbour. Ten were sunk and numerous others were damaged. Fifteen aircraft were destroyed including nine of the ten Kitty hawks that engaged the enemy.

The Post and telegraph offices were destroyed along with a Police Station, Barracks, Cable office, Government offices, RAAF hospital, Recreational Hall, and Equipment stores. Many houses were destroyed. The hospital was also damaged. The Darwin Harbour and RAAF base were hit the hardest.

The Japanese killed 253 people and wounded roughly 400. In the first two raids the Japanese used 242 planes. They dropped approximately 114 620 kilograms of ordinance consisting of at least 683 separate bombs and countless machine gun shells.

At Pearl Harbour, by contrast, they used 350 planes dropping only 271 bombs and torpedoes with an all up weight of about 146 400 kilograms.